Amazon boots WikiLeaksApparently the WikiLeaks site had been hosted on Amazon's servers, and Amazon removed the content at the request of Senator Joe Lieberman. One could be excused for having mixed feelings about the decision: On one hand, Amazon has every right to decide what can and cannot be hosted on its servers, and if it didn't want to be involved in the WikiLeaks phenomenon, it had every right to get rid of it. But the problem isn't necessarily that someone is hosting the content, or that it's being read -- it's that the content was in fact leaked in the first place by people who had an obligation not to do so. And if Senators are putting pressure on private companies instead of cleaning up the mess inside the government, then the hosting change is nothing more than a distraction from the fact that there's a problem inside the government itself.

Cats as target practiceWildlife researchers at the University of Nebraska think the only way to protect songbirds from homeless cats is to shoot the felines. Obviously, there are some cat lovers who think otherwise. But what about the birds? The state of Iowa is having trouble getting people to hunt enough deer to keep the population under control -- and deer don't kill songbirds. If the cat population is out of control, then something has to be done about it and it's incumbent upon the cat lovers to come up with a better idea.

Philips moves to ChinaThe Dutch company is moving its headquarters for domestic appliances to Shanghai. Not just production, the headquarters.

Google enhances the crossover between Street View and Google EarthThe distance between yesterday's cartographers and today's real-time imaging is growing by leaps and bounds. Google's latest development seeks to make a nearly-seamless transition between zooming into a location from a whole-Earth angle right down to standing on the street without missing a frame.

Kinetic typography and the Shop-Vac(Video) Someone spent hundreds of hours making up a music video made up of nothing but moving letters (in other words, "kinetic typography") and a handful of graphics. It's a little crazy, but nevertheless fun to see someone doing something creative under some serious restrictions. The beauty of art is in how it deals with constraints.

Qantas thinks they got bum engines from Rolls-RoyceAnd those engines were placed on the airline's Airbus A380 super-jumbo jets. Part of the problem with building something like the A380 -- bigger than any previous passenger jet -- is that the novel application usually requires some novel technologies, and because they're novel, they haven't always been field-tested in the real world under real-world stresses. That's why every new version of the Windows operating system requires batches of updates; as much as the program can be tested by its creators, it's still going to encounter new and unforeseen circumstances in actual use.

Warnings of a gap between civilians and the militaryThe outgoing chair of the House Armed Services Committee thinks there's a growing gap between individuals and families with military ties and those without. Given that we live in an era of armed conflict that appears to be more or less indefinite in duration, and that technology is making strange, science-fiction-like fantasies into reality (many of which can be and are weaponized), it's really quite important that the American voting public be well-attuned to the military condition.

Two words of advice to Groupon: Sell out.The online coupon service has reportedly declined a buyout offer of $5 to $6 billion from Google. They will come to regret that decision, because no online service lasts forever and no valuation of that nature endures.

Should the Washington Monument be closed?Is a monument to the nation's ideals one that should be subjected to an absurd number of precautions that represent fear instead? Actually closing the monument would be a step too far, but it's a decent thought experiment.

Has Google gone just a little daffy?Who in the world thought that an offering price of $5 billion for an Internet startup company was something we'd see again this long after the bursting of the dot-com bubble? And to have Google take the role of the suitor, no less? They're drunk with cash, it seems, because no Internet startup could reasonably be worth $5 billion when there are so many other smarter things for Google to invest in.

Final tenant moves out of Cabrini-GreenThe notorious public-housing complex is being torn down and replaced with lower-density housing, which most likely will put a damper on the kinds of violence and trouble for which the projects were known. When too many people live too closely together, it's difficult for them to see one another as human beings rather than as objects, and that dehumanizing effect can have terrible consequences.

Tit-for-tat in the WikiLeaks affairPayPal, MasterCard, and Visa have come under cyberattack after stopping payments to WikiLeaks. The attackers claim to be tied to "Anonymous", which has previously gone aggressively after the Scientology movement, and which now appears to be adopting WikiLeaks as a new cause. One would be hard-pressed to justify the actions of Anonymous -- it would not be justified, for instance, to spray-paint graffiti on the walls of their offices for the same reason, so attacking their Internet property is no less out of line. But the WikiLeaks situation also reveals just how wrong is the old adage, "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide". Governments around the world have been embarrassed by the WikiLeaks releases, not because they've necessarily done anything wrong, but because some things have a right to be kept in confidence. If diplomatic secrets are legitimate, business or personal secrets are as well. We have every right to keep countless things secret for their own sake, for reasons justified and not.

Omaha newspaper published names of signatories to mayoral recall petitionEnough people signed the petition that the mayor will probably be put up for a recall vote, tentatively scheduled for late January. The Omaha World-Herald has put the names of the petitioners online in a searchable database, which the newspaper's executive editor defends as a means of transparency in the vote. While there are certainly a lot of people who are surprised to find their names revealed in this way -- and some who are just angry about it, like radio host Tom Becka -- the editor makes a compelling case that petitions aren't a secret, unlike the individual's ballot. A person signing the petition must be witnessed by someone else in the process, and the petition itself -- aside from being a matter of public record anyway -- usually contains the names of other signatories by the time it comes to an individual, unless he or she just happens to be the first person to sign that particular page. What's interesting here is simply that it's taking place in the Internet era, which means one doesn't have to drive to the county courthouse to look up matters of public record, but can simply review them from anywhere on the planet via an Internet connection. Will there be reprisals against those who signed by those who oppose the petition? Maybe. But that really isn't grounds enough for keeping the petitioners' names secret.

Facebook 101A very short (two-page) guide to the essentials of what one should know before joining and using Facebook. Intended as a lesson plan for a 90-minute interactive class, but probably adequate for reading by a new user.

Iowa farmland prices skyrocket 15% in a yearThe average acre is worth $5,064 at the market rate. It's pretty difficult to believe that the figure actually reflects the true earnings potential of that land (as opposed to a speculative fury), given the wild variability in crop prices recently. If one assumes that the price of an asset should reflect the time-discounted value of what that asset will produce in the future, then farmland is a real challenge to assess objectively. As great as it may feel for farm values to be high on paper, high land prices also make it difficult for young farmers to enter the trade, and for farm families to pass on the assets of the family operation in an estate. Some counties, it should be noted, are seeing average prices of more than $7,000 per acre.

The giveaways resumeThe state of Iowa is giving away a $2.3 million forgivable loan to a startup firm in Ames to encourage them to expand -- and a $2 million forgivable loan to another firm in Cedar Rapids. Supposedly, it's all in the name of "job creation" and "economic development", but one might ask: Why offer a "forgivable loan" instead of taking an equity stake in the firm? The answer is probably because one would say that the government shouldn't take an ownership role in private businesses -- and that would be correct. But if an ownership stake is a bad idea, isn't a forgivable loan -- which costs the same as an equity stake, but comes with exactly zero of the benefits -- an even worse idea? The ridiculous practice of modern "economic development" appears to have next to nothing to do with creating an economic environment in which opportunity is maximized, and everything to do with funneling taxpayers' dollars (at no certain rate of return) to those who are best at asking for a handout. If $2.3 million is chump change, then it's not worth giving away. If it isn't, then why should one private firm get the money and not every other? This approach to "economic development" is costly and delusional.

Harvard and Google team up for a "genome" of the English languageThat's (in essence) what Google's Book Search has been all about: Aggregating the vast amounts of content that exists in printed form from the pre-Internet era and making it accessible via the Internet, which in turn makes it ready to be sorted and searched for research like this. They're using the research tool to look into questions of how the language evolves over time and what political and cultural changes do to influence the language.

Using discounts to encourage charityThe cartoonist who created the very clever "Bo Nanas" strip is offering a holiday discount on the book, and is turning the profits over to charity. That's how capitalism is supposed to work -- giving individuals tools with which to do good in the ways they want.

Cedar Rapids applies a lesson of Economics 101In order to help repopulate parts of down emptied by the floods of 2008, the city is offering what they say will be $35,000 in incentives for people to build new homes in places where the old ones were razed. The incentives include a free lot and 25% of the down payment on a new house. There's no doubt that's going to attract some buyers -- instant equity has a way of doing that -- but this is the third round of incentives being distributed by the city, and they're all targeting roughly the same price range of homes, so there could be a glut of those houses on the market as a result.

It's official: Iowa's going to lose another US House seatTaking the state from five to four, for a loss of 20% of our influence in the House. That's just really awful news. We'd be much better off in a system where the House contained ten times as many members as it does now, so that a reapportionment like the one that will go into effect in 2012 wouldn't hurt us so badly.

Personality engines: They're on the way(Video) Psychologists would probably say it's much more complicated, but for most purposes, it's probably adequate to say that you are your habits. We define ourselves by behaving in ways that reflect our personalities, and those patterns of behavior are, at least for most people, at least partly predictable. This raises a question: How many habits or patterns does it take to define a personality? And, to take it a step further: How many habits or patterns would it take, when programmed into a computing system, to pass a Turing test? In other words, what is the difference between "you" and a sophisticated computer program modeled on you? It's not purely an abstract question: Presidents have been known to ask themselves "What would Teddy Roosevelt do?" or "What would Abraham Lincoln do?" What if we could, in fact, program a personality engine to tell us what they likely would have done? On a personal level, many people would probably like to have a residual personality engine for their loved ones: Maybe you could never meet your great grandmother in person, but you could ask a program modeled on her personality what she would advise you to do in a given situation. We turn to computers and the Internet for a variety of answers to our fact-based questions, but we haven't yet learned how to ask (and receive) answers based more upon subjective advice. Microsoft has started down this path, positioning its Bing search engine as a "decision engine" -- but it's barely the first step down the road. We rely upon people to advise us -- and undoubtedly, many of us seek the counsel of those who are no longer alive. Perhaps the development of personality engines would allow us to overcome their physical absence and help us to make better decisions -- which, ultimately, would serve tremendous good. Of course, then we face the problem that people evolve, change, grow, and learn over time. What would a personality engine do? Would a Leonardo da Vinci personality engine behave with the habits and patterns of the man from 500 years ago? Or would we expect him to be more enlightened, sharing 21st Century views of a civilized society? We would undoubtedly be expected to seek counsel from one either way, but which one would it be? The original da Vinci, or one who had adapted to a diverse modern world in which cultures interact freely? Would erasing the prejudices of the past make the advice received less authentic? Moreover, the whole notion raises another question: To what extent would a personality engine also serve as a judgment engine?

Why it usually doesn't pay to switch checkout linesStatistically speaking, there's almost always going to be a faster line nearby. But there is a way in which stores can be organized to create the fastest-possible service: Unitary checkout lines for everybody, with lots of checkers each ready to serve whomever is next. That results in the lowest average wait for anyone overall, since nobody gets stuck in a single bad line (say with a price check).

Meet Mister Rogers' asteroidThere really is an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter that is named for Fred Rogers of the children's television show

Dead or alive? Look carefully at the eyes.A report in "Psychological Science" finds that we humans use the eyes to determine whether the thing we're looking at is alive or not. Apparently a continuum can be drawn between doll eyes and human eyes, and a certain point is reached where we decide a thing "looks" alive (even if we know it's not) when it's roughly two-thirds of the way to looking like it has human eyes. The eyes probably explain why we think things like baby monkeys are adorable.

MySpace goes for brokeThe social-networking service is trying to push its mobile service, along with a whole bunch of other aggressive marketing moves, to try to stay alive as it continues to get passed up in favor of Facebook. But for those keeping score at home, Facebook will undoubtedly have the same problem by about 2015, by which point Facebook will be so institutionalized that young people will see no reason to join it. The whole point of "youth culture" is to rebel against the mainstream, and Facebook is already crossing well over into the mainstream.

How Italians are richer than AmericansThe average Italian family has almost half a million dollars' in net worth. Part of this comes from having 80% homeownership. Part of it comes from having almost half the relative amount of debt as American families.

"The Girl Effect"(Video) How the world's rather large number of young girls could present a great risk for inducing perpetual poverty -- or a tremendous opportunity to help the developing world get on a trajectory toward a better future.

Should you friend your parents on Facebook?Flowcharts may or may not provide the answer, but it should be noted that the question reveals the likelihood that Facebook has already "peaked" in popularity. Young people try to do things that are outside the mainstream, and Facebook is now very much mainstream. But the concept of social networking is here to stay: Like television, the concept will remain, even if the precise tools used to get there change. Facebook will be eclipsed by some other social-networking website, just like MySpace was eclipsed by Facebook. But the concept remains, so people have to understand the concept in order to respond flexibly to changes in the actual technology.

Even a taunting photo on Facebook isn't enough to catch a DC burglarA burglar left a photo of himself on the Facebook profile of a person he burglarized, and the DC police don't seem to have figured out how to use that picture to positively identify the burglar -- even though it's a clear full-frontal head shot and the victim has reported the story quite clearly on the Washington Post.

All the energy in the worldHow different countries use energy -- and what kinds they use. One glance at the graphs for the United States and China makes it quite clear that not only is China bounding right to the front of the pack in terms of total energy use, it's also using dramatically more coal than any other country to produce it. That's going to have a distinct effect on the planet's atmosphere.

How to calculate the size of an effective nuclear arsenalThe British thought they needed at least enough of their own to kill 10 million Russians just to keep the USSR from bothering Western Europe. That's in addition to the massive arsenal its NATO ally the United States already had available.

"Birther" movement, please go awayThe movement to have Barack Obama removed from office under the argument that he wasn't born in the United States has really quite outlived any credibility, and now the new governor of Hawaii is promising to do what he can to make them go away. That won't actually work; they'll just develop a persecution complex which will only confirm in their own minds that they're victims of a conspiracy.

How an exoskeleton helps paraplegics to walk againOne has to be astonished to see a tool like this, which allows paraplegics to leave their wheelchairs and walk (and even climb stairs) with the aid of crutches. It's really quite mind-blowing, and yet it's only an infant technology now in the trial stages. One can only imagine how rudimentary it will look 25 years from now. Despite anything that is said about this being a civilization in decline, the evidence simply has it that we are in fact getting better all the time. We may stumble and may take some steps backward from time to time, but humans are getting smarter all the time, and as we get smarter, we can solve more of the problems that previously bound us.

Amazon says the Kindle is its top-selling product everBeating out even the top-selling book they've ever sold. And when the price for the e-book reader falls to about $75 (as it would be reasonable to predict will happen in 2011), then sales ought to become even more brisk. Schools will switch to e-book readers (rather than dusty old textbooks) out of economy as much as practicality, and people will view the reader as the equivalent of an expensive dinner out. That makes them an easy sale (relatively speaking).

Left-wingers and their political partiesThe Irish political landscape is in a bit of tumult as their next election approaches -- and a group of leftists are trying to form a party built around, well, being leftists. But the problem with leftist populist movements is quite the same as that of right-wing populist movements: Being built upon popular anger at "someone else", they can only endure for a short period of time while the villification still satisfies. And that never really lasts for long.

A club for people who like hand-lettered signsThanks to digital printing, there aren't quite as many hand-painted signs around as there used to be. But like many crafts, hand-painting has its adherents who will keep the art alive.